Robotics

Servo

Small device containing 2 DC motors a gear train and potentiometer, an integrated circuit and an output shaft. Used for precise control of angular or linear velocity or acceleration. As long as it maintains the same signal it will maintain its position until a new signal is sent.

allocentric

Spatial representation. Reference frame is based on the external environment and not on personal location. (how far away is each object from itself)

egocentric

Spatial represetentation with a reference frame of self (how far away am I from the environment.)

robot

Systems that sense their environment, decide what to do, and act on that environment.

Automation

Technology that performs a procedure, like production, with minimal human assistance.

IROS

The International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Academic conference covering advances in robotics.

Autonomy

The ability of an object to act alone or to make decisions without outside intervention.

tech incubator

A company that helps new startup companies to develop services by providing a training and in some cases basic resources to become established and come out of the incubator.

Single Board Computer

A complete computer built on a single circuit board (containing cpu, memory, and IO). Raspberry Pi is an example of an SBC.

Motor Encoder

A device used for speed and position control. Turns mechanical motion into electrical signal that is used by the control system to monitor specific parameters and adjustments necessary to keep the machine operating as desired.

open-loop control

A non-feedback system that where the output doesn't depend on the input

Big Dog

A quadruped robot created by Boston Dynamics for the US military with funding from DARPA

Davinci Surgical Systems

A robot-assisted surgical system. Created to perform minimally invasive surgery with advanced set of instruments and 3D view of the surgical area.

Point Cloud

A set of data points in 3D space. Generally used by 3D scanners which take many points off of external objects around them. Can be used for modleing and visualisation.

microcontroller

A small computer on a single integrated circuit chip. Contain cpu, memory and IO. Performs one task and executes one specific application.

Raspberry Pi

A small credit card size computer that runs Linux used to teach computer science to kids and adults alike. Developed by the Raspberry Pi foundation in UK

Boston Dynamics

American robotics company known for making robots like Big Dog (quadruped) designed for the US military with funding from DARPA. It also created ATLAS designed for various search and rescue tasks

Kalman Filter

An algorithm that uses multiple measurements over time to produce estimates of unknown variables that tend to be more accurate than those based on a single measurement alone.

iCub

An open source humanoid robotic platform for research into human cognition and artificial intelligence. It can see and hear and balance. Built by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT).

Gazebo

An open-source 3D robotics simulator. We use it specifically for turtlebot simulations and mapping.

Atlas

Bipedal robot created by Boston Dynamics capable of demonstrating human level agility.

ClearPath Robotics

Canadian robotics company founded out of Waterloo University. They seek to automate the dullest, dirtiest, and deadliest jobs.

RGBD

Combination of RGB image and corresponding Depth image. Depth image: where each pixel maps to a distance between the image plane and the corresponding object in the RGB image

pose

Combination of position and orientation of the robot in space

cognitive robotics

Concerned with giving robotics intelligent behaviour by giving it a processing architecture capable of learning and reasoning.

Proportional Integral Derivative Controller

Control loop mechanism used in industrial control system and other systems requiring continuously modulated control. Calculates error values as the difference between the desired setpoint and measured process variable and applies a correction based on proportional, integral, and derivative terms.

Pulse-Width Modulation

Controls the amount of power going to an electrical device. By modulating the delivery of power by switching on and off we can have an average voltage delivery.

Odometry

Data collected from motion sensors to estimate change in position over time. Used for determining position relative to starting position.

DoF

Depth of Field relating to vision. It is the distance between the nearest object and the farthest object that are in acceptably sharp focus in an image.

4Front Robotics

Develops unmanned robots for civil applications. Based out of Calgary AB. Focus on Ground and aerial vehicles for complex environments.

closed-loop control

Feedback system where the output is dependent on the input.

GPIO

General Purpose Input/Output: a pin on an integrated circuit whose behaviour is dictated by the user at runtime.

Sampling Rate

How often a sample, a value at a single point int time, is read from a continuous signal. The higher the sampling rate the more the sampler is reading from the signal.

HRI

Human Robot Interaction: the study of how humans are to interface with robots. Employs fields from AI, robotics, language processing, design, the humanities, and social sciences.

Asimo

Humanoid robot designed by Honda. Was developed to research bipedal robots.

I2C

Inter-integrated Circuit protocol: allows multiple 'slave' digital chips to communicate with one or more 'master' chips. Intended for short distance communications within a single device. Used for interfacing with sensors, memory modules and LCD's. Much more robust than SPI.

ICRA

International Conference on Robotics and Automation: covers advances in robotics like IROS.

Lego Mindstorms

Lego hardware and software used for the development of programmable robots based on lego building blocks. Each kit comes with a core brick with a variety of other sensors.

Inertial Measurement Unit

Measures and reports orientation, velocity and gravitational forces. Uses accelerometers and gyroscopes. Used in navigation, measurement, testing, and mapping.

SPI

Serial Peripheral Interface: communication protocol for microcontrollers. Like I2C but faster. Uses a clock like I2C, for synchronizing the receiver and transmitter.

Aldebaran

Now SoftBank Robotics they create the Nao robot a 60 cm tall robot used in research and by companies and health care centres to entertain and inform visitors.

turtlebot

Personal robot kit with open-source software. Created by Willow garage in 2010. Capable of 3D vision, object avoidance and detection.

ROS

Robot Operating System: an open source operating system used to interact with robots.

Rethink Robotics

Robotics company that created the collaborative robot. A robot to work alongside a human and not replace him. They created the robot Sawyer for precision tasks.

Willow Garage

Robotics research and design company that develops hardware and software for personal robot applications. One of the founders of ROS.

SLAM

Simultaneous localization and mapping : create a Map and be able to figure out where it is in that map

value proposition

The promise of value to be delivered. If you plan on designing a robot that can make crop production increase by 50% then you have a high value proposition because farmers will pay to have that robot around so that they intern can sell more crop without using more land.

behaviour control

Using manipulation to change a current behaviour to the desired behaviour. In robots this can be achieved through machine learning and AI.

Use case

What application is the robot going to fulfil? What problem it will solve? The Use case answers these questions by outline its role and purpose with interacting with humans.